I remember the day vividly, the day that I asked my aunt why I had no father. A sad look came over her face. She said that I had the right to know, but I was never to mention our conservation to my mother. It seems that my father had taken his life when my mother was awaiting my birth. Evidently she could never forgive him, especially since she had no idea why he had done this terrible thing.

Resentment began to grow within me due to her silence. I had an overwhelming desire to know about my father. His name never escaped her lips.

Late one night I heard a thumping in the attic. I ran upstairs in search of it. There I found a rusty old trunk, and it seemed the sound was coming from inside it. With trembling hands I opened the lid, but I saw nothing that could account for the strange beckoning sound.

What I did see was an army uniform, and lying atop it was a photo of a man--a man who was the image of me. I had found a picture of my father! I held it to my heart, and the tears began to flow down my cheeks. I hurried downstairs and hid the photo under my mattress. I slipped it out every day and stared at the face in the picture.

The following year when my mother began her spring cleaning, I heard a scream from my bedroom. When I found her, she was standing beside my bed with the photo in her hand. There was a wild look on her face that I had never seen before. She walked toward me, and without a word she slapped me so hard on the cheek that I fell to the floor. She ripped the picture into shreds and threw it like confetti into the air. She then exited the room with a dazed look, and neither of us ever spoke of the incident.

That was almost fifty years ago. My mother is gone, and I still have no answers to the questions that plague me day and night. I never found any other mementos of the man who looked so much like me. It was if he never existed.

The day my mother found the photo under my mattress still haunts me. When the memory comes to mind, I can still feel my cheek burning.

Copyright © 2008 Barbara Cagle Ray